The Lake #5 Into the woods I go.

The lake in three places is flanked by three very different woods that certainly effect the areas of water they line. The old rhododendron wood is, as it's name implies, festooned with this rampant alien. Although all of the trees that form the canopy of this wood are truly English; so many are ancient old oaks that Autumn pike fishing under it's cover on a windy day is a dangerous affair, with acorns falling from height like bullets, clonking any unaware anglers out of there essox related day dreams. When dusk comes this is a noisy place to be. The dense foliage crated by the rhododendrons harbours masses of pheasants whose eerie vibrating calls ring out echoing through the silent air. The trees too hide unseen avians that awaken at night. A large amount of little owls seem to roost eyes closed up in those three tops, only to wake at night and begin shrieking back and forth to each other with the regularity of metronome testing faculty. All in all by day it is a quiet spot, bar falling nuts. But by night it is not the place for those afraid of screeches in the night.

On the opposite bank exists the second of the three woodlands which is in a way different from the other two. Where the lake laps at the land a front line of old English trees hang out over the water, slowing reclaiming the wood at their own pace. The hand of man still dots this place with a host of trees which have little to right to exist here. Browns wood is dense and over grown, a dark place with crumbling old buildings hidden under moss deep in its depths. Once in my youth myself and some friends ventured into it's depths and found an old path lined with massive stones that looked like it wouldn't look out of place with fairies buzzing over it. We followed it as far as we could until natures growth cut us off, and retreat from the stifling air and dank was our only option. This wood hangs so far and densely over the lake you can't see out of it, never mind cast from it even in the dead of winter when the trees fall bare.

The brook wood is the final of the three and of all of them this one looks probably as England did thousands of years ago. In the winter it is open and the cold wind courses through it onto your back, chilling you to the bone. Come spring, passage through it becomes difficult, the myriad of brambles that offer cover to all the usual characters serve to keep out humans. It faces Browns wood, only separated from each other by the lake. On the right day the wind deflects off either wood leaving the shallow water still and warm. If the sight of ancient aloof carp cruising through lily pads stimulates, you then an hour spent up a tree in this wood would have you salivating and possibly being tricked into commitment to a fruitless cause. 

The latter of the three was where I fancied might be good for a cast. The pad lined base of Browns wood on the other bank is both secure and safe for fish. The shadows of anglers have not been cast over this water in a hundred years. A hefty chuck it is to that far bank, and it is only normally the dedicated carpers who fish this water.

At four in the morning the water was still shrouded in mist and barley visible. The banks were quiet and deserted. I could hear the sudden calls of moorhens along the reed beds as I slipped unseen around the edge of the lake. Not one angler was under the cover of the trees, which was very surprising. Normally hard worn carpers doze in this area with bags under their eyes and nets caked thick in bream slime. To them one proper bite in five days is good, and double figure bream moping up their carefully placed boilies is bad. They are always a font of up to date information; Dave who's on the other bank got done over by the bream last night, or Kev over in the wood is getting plagued by tench. They always hand over that stuff freely. But ask about carp and they close up quicker than a bivalve at a clam bake. If ever I see a jumping carp or cruising zeppelin I always pass on the info to the first interactive carper I see at the lake, as frankly they need any help they can get as one fish per season is considered good by the lake's standards.

My normal casual lead around confirmed the shallow bay in front was peppered with random patches of differing types of weed. The last third of the cast to the far bank seemed clear enough so a few balls of left over ground bait was sent around the marker, followed by a single feeder on this spot. The second was put tight into a weed bed just beginning to break the surface and the third was nailed full tilt onto the far bank lily line at the edge of the wood.

I saw my first fish roll after only half an hour and it was definitely the brown back of a bream. All along the far bank they rolled for a good hour. Then a big common breached full out of the water before making two less spectacular jumps amongst the pads. As the day grew lighter and the mist cleared the lake looked different somehow. It was the water! It was heavily coloured. Like many old lakes this one is feed by an inlet stream and according to other resident anglers it had been spewing dirty sediment laden water in for the latter half of last week. This though had seemingly pushed the majority of the fish population down into the end of the lake I was actually fishing.

A while after the rolling fish disappeared and the liners started. Even with my line pinned down as best I could the active fish seemed to catch them as they passed. As far as I could figure there was weed bed half way between my spots and me and as the lines slumped down over it that was where they kept contacting them.

As I was embroiled in a conversation with another angler heading deep into another wood when the rod I had tight to the far bank first bleeped once then moved off steadily. Much to mine and my companions delight. Immediately I knew this was no bream as my three pound test rod did a very good impression of a hula hoop. Keeping slow and deep it kited left then back right before surging towards me. Desperately trying to keep up I wound down as quick as possible only to feel the numb thump a fish makes when it's head is deep in a weed bed.

After applying as much I thought safe, my only option was to hand the rod around a tree and wade through the chest high foliage into the next swim to try and change the angle. And it worked! the fish was free and the clutch sang one long note as it dived deeper into the weed bed. Tracing back to my swim I again changed angle but this time the thumping was gone and line again was spooled onto to my reel. The pile of weed I landed was massive; an estimate of five pounds of bloodworm riddled weed may be a conservative.

It has been a long time since I felt the loss of a fish so badly and also a long time since I have felt the raw force of something truly massive and uncontrollable. Bream or tench it was not. A carp or cat was definitely responsible for that overpowering fight. Even if I knew it was a massive cat I know I would not feel the pain of loss so badly as what I honestly suspect it was. For those carp are just so special that even when you hook one by pure luck it feels like you have wasted your only chance ever...

By mid morning I had calmed somewhat and the mist was gone. Now the unseasonal sun baked down on the water. The liners had slowed and water grew calmer. A single bleep drew my attention to my bobbins in the hope one might just rise against all odds. Just beyond the bank a sight no angler could ignore suddenly appeared. With no doubt in my mind I knew exactly what it was. Then again tiny fizzing bubbles rose all at once.

One or more tench browsed right under my rods and I could not resist. My spare rod was blindly grabbed . Float, rubber, weight and hook where all attached by feel alone as my eyes would not move away. They were feeding exactly where I tossed any old bait or hookers. I do not think I have ever so gently lowered a bait into place. For the next two hours I watched that float like a hawk willing it to first rise a little before sliding away

It never did slide away attached to a lovely summer tench, but eventually I did slide away to watch someone else on TV waste the wonderful chance he probably won't ever get again.

The Lake #4 Is that done.

I have always been prone to a niggling feeling or two and I already have a niggling feeling that I have may have been over cooking my fishing on the lake a bit. By this I mean that I am wondering that my Dresden style bombardment of ground bait may be effecting the dynamic of my time on the lake.

Sure when I have a prolonged amount of time on the bank as I did on my last visit, a mass ground baiting is perfectly logical. Given time the new feature on the lakes desolate bottom will always attract fish. But there is no doubt in my mind that the initial disturbance sends any fish resident within quite a large area scampering.
So for the shorter evening sessions putting in any amount of bait seems a foolhardy waste. Yes they will more than likely get on it, but more than likely when I am at home supping a cup of tea ruing the blank.
Thinking this has caused an early change of tack, though this experimental idea I will only apply to short sessions where I do not wish to clear the decks for the entire time I fish.

My love of the method ball is undoubted. Having that small concentrated patch of bait with my hook bait nestled right on the top like a tempting cherry to me is the pinnacle of accuracy. Even fishing over a large bed of bait as I have been, the method ball is a must. I always imagine a shoal of fish confidently moving from one pile of free bait to another filling there boots on free grub, when Bang! one of them pick the wrong one and my bite alarm shrieks shrilly before I strike.
This in mind, instead of wasting bait again, I thought I would have a go at softly softly catchy fishy. Though only intending to use a small amount of bait I did opt to super charge it with fishy attractiveness by adding unimaginable amounts of fish meal, fish oil and other potent ingredients.

So the other night I put this into practise for a few hours and snuck back to the lake in the sheeting rain to try this experiment out and see what reaction I got.

The bank was deserted and quiet. Even the local wildfowl were absent on this warm wet evening. Upon opening my bait bucket the tangy fishy stench jumped right down my throat. There was no doubting the pungency of this stuff and hopefully the fish would think so too.

Although simple, my application of it was to be organised. One bait just off the marginal shelf where days before I had spotted the tell tale fizz of feeding tench last time. The second around mid range on the marker still clipped on my rod from the previous session and the third punched out as far as my rod would allow. Should any one rod get more attention than the others, then one by one the others would be carefully redistributed into that area.

Again the night passed quietly and through the low visibitly I did spot what I suspect were rolling bream on line for my middle rod but none of them found my bait, as stinky as it was.
It was the long range rod than finally sparked into life, but the bite never truly developed. It just beeped a few times dropped, then rose, then beeped. Even bream sooner or later make a bite indicator sing when they feel the searing sting of hook.
After hoovering over the rod for an age and checking the area for tufties I finally made the decision to lift into it and was rewarded with absolutely nothing. But once the rig hit my hand the problem was evident and very unlucky. When setting up I split a boilie in two and casually tossed into the bait bucket. Low and behold I had one boilie on the hook and half a boilie impaled on the hook masking the point from whatever picked it up.

That was my only action over the short session and by dark, hunger had become the new psychological battle. Gutted to miss the only action of the night due to an avoidable mistake I made my way back through the damp woods.

Though I feel that this was no gauge of how successful this tactic can be, and it certainly won't be the last chance I give it. I am beginning to wonder if the shorter evening sessions are going to be worth it especially having to fish at range. Maybe if the damn sun ever makes an appearance I might target one of the few lily beds in the shallow bay for a spot of classical lift float fishing on a sultry summer night.

Sniffing out new water.

This past week I managed to get in two sessions on a new water. For a few of my angling/blogging buddies it is a regular venue on their yearly schedule of lakes, with others recently joining them. It is however totally new to me.

I agreed to meet up with Keith on Thursday for my first foray into the unknown. I arrived quite a lot earlier than Keith after chipping off work early with the express intention of having a good look round and tapping up the locals for any inside info.

My first sight of the lake confirmed I had vastly overestimated the size of it, but the gin clear water and clean gravel that could been seen from the edge made it look rather nice. I did speak to a few natives and it seemed as I heard before that some accurate spodding was order of the day.

When Keith arrived I opted to fish  an adjacent peg to him as during the few hours I'd spent exploring, peeping and generally grubbing around the lake I hadn't seen a single sign of fish.

I started by banging out 15-20 large feeders of ground bait onto a deepish area with a nice clean bottom  then put a feeder rig baited with a few grains of corn on top. My second rod was rigged up with a method feeder rid and cast into the margins.

Over the next few hours my rods remained absolutely silent and I never even got the slightest indication of any fish moving over my carpet of bait. Eventually I spotted a couple of feeding patches that betrayed the subsurface location of at least two tench. It didn't take a few seconds for me to cast the method ball into the area. With still no reaction to my baits I was round in Keith's swim chatting away when the rod hoofed off like a it was attached to wild animal. By the time I had the rod in hand the fish had moved maybe thirty metres form the left to right and was not far off a nasty snag in the margins. Locking down the clutch I turned it back into open water and managed to get it into the side towards the waiting net manned by Keith. A large green side was all I saw as it rolled on the surface and snapped my hook link. Keith did the sensible thing and disappeared off to his own swim and left me cursing myself for not letting that clutch back off.

Later I had a second run which was dropped, and as evening closed in on my third screaming run off the night I made contact with a second,  allbeit smaller fish, which turned out to be another tench which also came off in the edge.

I never expect to do really well on a new lake especially one like this with clear water and a natural population of fish which probably have no reason to ever eat an anglers bait, but this session had given me a glimpse into how the fish feed. To be honest I reckon that all the disturbance I caused whacking in loads of bait was probably detrimental to the fishing and searching them out with small parcels of bait worked much better.

I know for sure that the rods I brought along were far to heavy for the job in hand at 2 1/4lb. But I had convinced myself that I would be throwing large feeders long distances all night and the lack of give in those rods were directly to blame for the lost fish.

Two days later I went back with Andy to have another go this time opting for a couple of swims in a wooded area of the lake. We had arrived very early and there seemed to be signs of life in front of us. This time two method feeders went in. My hope was to try and pick off a fish here and there using the softly softly approach. If you can call method feeders softly that is. 

My swim never sparked into life at all but Andy's on the other hand seemed to get regular visits from moving fish and in no time he had banked some very nice tench.

I was starting to wonder why my almost identical baits which were not that far off Andy's were receiving no attention at all. I decided to go off and have have a mooch up the bank in the area I had fished only a few nights before. Upon arriving I spotted Lee on the opposite bank and also two or three patches of tench fizz in the area id fished before. It was a no brainer and soon enough I found myself set up in the swim. For the next couple of hours I sat and watched the feeding fish move off round the corner ignoring my baits as they did.

I received news that Andy was still on the fish and made that difficult decision to move back to the swim which had produced nothing before, but I knew there were at least fish in the area.

It's not easy to stand watching as your mate mullers the lake whilst your rods sit idle close by, but as I did Lee turned up and reported nothing more than two liners/dropped runs as well as two other experienced anglers suffering the seeming same fate.

Finally whilst I stood nattering my right hand rod ripped off as a feisty male tench made it's bid for freedom.

The lighter rod I had brought this time performed admirably in subduing the savage diving runs and lee slipped the net under a perfect 4.4lb male tench.

Check the fins on that!

At last I had landed one! Not the biggest tench in the lake but a pretty damn perfect one as far as I am concerned. Whilst  we were fishing I began to suspect that the fish that Andy was encountering were either moving along a specific route that didn't come as far up the bank as I was fishing or that they were following a bar which may have been a little further out in my swim. Ether way I did eventually get a run and I know for sure this lake will get a few more visits over the summer from this tench addict.